


Warm You Up

by Trumpeteer34



Series: Prompt Fills [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: American Pi - Freeform, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Bruce Feels, Cold, Community: avengerkink, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Snow and Ice, Steve Feels, Team Dynamics, mention of nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trumpeteer34/pseuds/Trumpeteer34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the kinkmeme: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/17613.html?thread=40216013#t40216013<br/> <br/><i>After a battle, Bruce de-Hulks somewhere away from the team, where he's hard to find. Wherever that happens to be, it's cold. By the time they finally find him, he's half-frozen, shivering uncontrollably, dazed, etc.</i></p><p>  <i>Steve still has his own issues with cold/ice and is all over Bruce with blankets, hot drinks, and various shoulder/hand/body rubs until he's sure Bruce is properly warmed up.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm You Up

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of the named characters present. They belong to Marvel. This was written purely for fun.

The storm was getting worse. No one aboard the quinjet would admit it aloud, but Steve knew the situation was growing worse and worse by the second. Despite that, he stood in the open sliding door of the jet, staring out past the thick and heavy snowflakes that swirled around him.

Next to him, Clint’s intense stare was trained downward at the terrain below.

It had been a brutal fight, made worse by the mountainous terrain and the winter storm that had come out of nowhere. As if it hadn’t been cold enough before, raised high above sea level toward the peak of the mountain, at least seven inches of snow had been dumped on them during the battle. 

They had won close to two hours ago, and the storm was getting worse.

And Bruce was still missing. 

None of them knew how the Hulk had managed to get away from them. The battle had been so hectic. Wave after wave of strange mutated… _things_ had been trying to make their way down the mountain to the valley at the base, and it had taken hours to defeat all of them. No one was sure when the Hulk had disappeared.

And it was so cold, there was probably close to two feet of snow on the ground, and it was starting to get dark.

Steve barely registered the cold; he just felt numb with fear and worry. The memory of the icy fingers that had suddenly clenched around his heart and into his chest when they realized that the Hulk was gone seemed like a distant memory. It was like the terrible anxiety had burrowed deep inside of him, and then froze solid. 

“The Doppler shows another wave of heavy snow about to come over this region, Cap,” Natasha called from the pilot’s seat.

Tony breathed a curse through their earpieces. He and Thor were sent off on their own to search the other mountain peaks along the mountain range, and had so far come up with no sign of their missing teammate. There were signs of destruction on most of the mountains in the form of uprooted trees, but any sign of giant footprints had long since been covered by falling snow. Tony and the quinjet had the added advantage of heat-seeking radar, but they were finding more animals than anything, and the heavy snowfall was beginning to hamper the scanners.

The announcement sent another wave of fear through the super soldier, but he remained where he was standing, frozen in place and eyes on the move for anything that could hint at his lover’s location.

As Natasha swung the jet around the face of the mountain again, just overtop the trees, Steve cast another search over the area with his eyes and—

He nearly jumped when Clint’s hand suddenly wrapped around his forearm. Steve immediately looked over at the archer, and his heart leapt into his throat at the look of suspended hope on the man’s face.

The soldier’s eyes immediately shot back to the mountain, and Clint removed the hand on Steve’s arm to point toward a small cluster of trees. Steve frantically scanned the area, heart pounding in his chest, and then he saw it.

Past the swirling snowflakes, there was a small, hunched figure curled against a tree, half-buried in the snow.

“Bless your eyes,” Steve murmured in a distracted voice. He turned his head toward the front of the jet, not taking his eyes from the unmoving person. “Nat!”

The quinjet immediately back-tracked a little bit to return to the area as Clint grabbed his bow. His fingers nimbly pushed a combination over the buttons before he drew an arrow. “Hold ‘er steady, Tasha,” the archer called to the redheaded spy manning the jet.

Steve whirled around to pick up his shield and a blanket that had been waiting on the bench for the past two hours. As he was turning back around, Clint had already loosed the grappling arrow and was attaching the end of the wire to a handle in the door. 

Without another word, the soldier put his shield over the wire and was suddenly careening over the trees as he zip-lined out into the snowstorm. 

He dropped from the line before he collided with the tree the arrow had embedded itself into, tucking and rolling as he hit the thick blanket of freezing snow. The impact and sudden cold was jarring, but the second he was back on his feet, Steve was shaking the snow from his head and racing toward where Clint had spotted something.

The fight against the snow was nothing compared to his frantic need to reach the half-buried figure. He squinted against the harsh flakes circling around his face, and once he was close enough, he knew for sure it was Bruce, and his heart nearly stopped.

As he reached him, Steve saw that Bruce was completely naked, having lost the pants that would have been threadbare after the transformation. He was curled up tight with his back pressed up to the rough bark of a tree, hidden in an attempt to escape from the biting wind. Snow piled on top and all around him, despite the harsh shivers that were raking through his pale and slightly bluish body.

Steve immediately started removing the snow that had accumulated upon the man, who hadn’t registered anything except the horrid cold. He murmured reassurances as he worked; whether they were for Bruce or himself, he couldn’t say. Once the snow had been removed from his person, Steve shook out the folded blanket and wrapped it tightly around Bruce’s frigid body. Even through the gloves of his uniform, Bruce’s skin felt like ice.

“I’ve got you,” the soldier whispered as he drew Bruce’s shaking body against him, breath puffing out like a heavy cloud against the cold air. “I’ve got you.”

There was a _thump_ behind him. He kept Bruce pulled tight to his body as he turned, finding Thor wading through the snow toward them. The Asgardian had his hammer in hand and a determined look on his face.

Steve gathered Bruce into his arms and stood, barely registering that the snow had soaked through the knees of his already-damp uniform. He felt the demigod’s arm wrap around him and he stepped onto Thor’s boot.

After a few mighty swings of his hammer, they were airborne and flying through the heavy snowflakes toward the jet.

As soon as they landed, Clint wrapped a thick blanket around both Bruce and Steve and led them to the bench that lined the inside of the jet. Thor closed the sliding door to the jet to ensure that no more cold air got inside the immediate area. Steve sat down on the bench and pulled Bruce close to him. The man continued to shiver violently and was otherwise as unresponsive as he was when Steve pulled him from the snow, and who was still frigid to the touch.

This was the man who was more unnaturally warm than Steve was, but Steve actually loved that about him. On nights when memories of the ice would haunt his dreams, the soldier would always curl up tight against Bruce, who would wrap his arms around him, and the radiant warmth and loving embrace would chase away any lingering hints of cold.

That man’s skin now felt like ice.

Steve shrugged the blanket that had been wrapped around him and tucked it around Bruce instead, hoping that the added layer would warm the man quickly. He craned his neck to look at Bruce’s face. The man’s eyes were closed and his breathing was a bit rapid, and there was still a bluish tint to his lips. 

The soldier felt the jet turn, probably heading away from the mountain to the tower—or the nearest hospital.

That thought sent another wave of distress through him, but before he could do anything about it, he saw Clint approach again.

“He doesn’t look too bad,” the archer said after a moment of scrutinizing Bruce’s face, as Steve had been doing only a moment prior. A look of protest must have appeared on Steve’s countenance, for Clint turned his intense stare over to meet his blue eyes. “I mean, I know it doesn’t look good, Cap,” he went on, “but I’ve seen folks in worse condition after being out in storms far less worse than this for far less time.” 

The sound of metal hitting the back ramp of the jet rang through the hull. Tony came walking into the area, faceplate of his suit lifted and eyes immediately going to his lab partner. “Is he alright?” he asked.

“He shouldn’t need medical attention,” Clint answered. He held out the towel he was holding to the soldier. “You both need to dry off and warm up, Cap.”

“I’m fine,” Steve replied, but he took the towel. Even to his ears, he sounded distracted and distant.

Thankfully, Clint didn’t call him on his bluff and returned to the front of the jet.

Steve’s eyes followed him for a moment before he started to carefully pat the towel against Bruce’s hair. He couldn’t give the man’s half-frozen limbs a good rub-down like he would have liked to, as it would have caused even more medical problems, so he had to simply settle for drying off Bruce’s curly locks. They were also half-frozen, the water having partially melted in the few minutes they had already been aboard the quinjet.

Once his hair was as dry as it was going to get for the moment, Steve carefully pulled the first blanket away. It had collected some snow when Steve had grabbed him, and was starting to get damp and cold. He tossed it aside and then pulled the second blanket back into place before he wrapped the shaking man back into a tight embrace.

“You’re shivering, Cap.”

He was snapped from his thoughts as he felt something drape over his shoulders. He turned to find Tony tossing the rest of the blanket over Bruce before he sat down next to the soldier, leaving some space between them. In that space, a thermos was placed. “Hot chocolate,” Tony said with a forced-casual shrug. “You both need to warm up.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said again, removing the blanket from around him and starting to wrap up Bruce instead.

“Oh, for the love of—”

Steve turned in time to see Natasha throw off her headset and come storming toward him. Tony scooted away from the soldier as she snatched up the towel next to him.

“Nat—” Steve began, but was immediately cut short when she started violently drying his head, practically attacking him with the towel. “Nat!” he called, wanting to fight her off, but unwilling to let go of Bruce. After a moment, he begrudgingly submitted to her ministrations.

When she was done, she withdrew the towel. “Stop being so stubborn,” she ordered firmly, and then threw the towel into his face. “Thor.”

Another wave of panic shot through the soldier when he felt Bruce being taken from him. He ripped the towel away from his face, but any protest he would have made died on his lips when he saw the harsh look the assassin was giving him.

“Your uniform is still wet, Cap,” Natasha informed him, and threw another blanket over his shoulders. “It’s not doing Bruce any good, and it’s not doing you any good.” The words were gentle, contrasting starkly against the force she was using to tuck the blanket around his cold body. 

She then pointed at the thermos. “Drink the hot chocolate,” she demanded, and then stalked back up to the pilot’s area.

Steve watched her go for a lingering moment, but his attention was instantly distracted when Thor gently handed Bruce back to him. The soldier immediately wrapped his arms back around the shivering man and tucked Bruce’s face into his neck. He shivered at the feel of his lover’s frozen skin against his neck, but didn’t let go.

“Whether it is the cold that makes you shake or the anxiety, dear friend,” Thor began softly, gingerly covering his two teammates with yet another blanket, “please do try to warm yourself.”

With that, Thor went off to go sit a bit further down to give Steve his privacy. Steve’s eyes followed him until the demigod was seated. 

He glanced to his other side when Tony nudged the thermos a bit closer with one hand, not taking his eyes off of his tablet. Steve eyed the thermos for a second, but then returned his attention to Bruce, pulling the man’s face from his neck. 

The bluish tint was beginning to vanish, but he was still shivering terribly.

At the sound of a sigh next to him, Steve glanced back over at Tony and pulled Bruce’s face back into his neck. The engineer was giving him a look that was so very Pepper it was almost funny. “Drink the hot chocolate, Steve,” he said, sounding completely unamused.

“Don’t make me come back there again!” Natasha yelled from the cockpit. “Drink your damn hot chocolate!”

There was a sound almost like a huffed laugh, and its familiarity made Steve instantly freeze. Through the shivering, he felt the head against his shoulder tilt a little more into his neck. Hope immediately blossomed through him, warmer than anything he had felt in the past several hours.

“Just do it, Steve,” came a hoarse and halting voice, words as shaky as the owner. “You’re freezing.”

When Steve pulled Bruce away from his neck, he found the other man’s eyes open. They were dazed and exhausted, but they were open. 

They stared at each other for a long moment before Steve let out a breathless laugh and pulled him into a tight hug. All of that desperate worry and anxiety faded within him, leaving him shaking with relief almost as badly as Bruce was. The physicist didn’t have control over his limbs, but by how tightly one of his hands was clinging to the blanket across the soldier’s chest, Steve knew Bruce was returning the embrace just as desperately.

Steve pressed a kiss to the man’s freezing temple and kept his arms wrapped tightly around him.

==

By the time they got back to the tower, the worst of the shivering had faded. Still, Bruce’s skin hadn’t warmed to its normal heat-radiator levels, and was still cold to the touch. 

The team went their separate ways for the night, an unspoken agreement among them to do the post-mission dinner and movie on the following day. They were all exhausted from the mission and the subsequent search-and-rescue.

Steve carried Bruce back to the physicist’s apartment, as the man’s limbs were not really cooperating with him. They were both still bundled up in the blankets, and while they had helped to drive away the harshest of the icy feeling, there was still a deep-seated cold that lingered inside both of them.

“Now, don’t fall asleep just yet,” Steve murmured into Bruce’s hair as he set the man down on the king-sized bed, still swaddled up in the blankets. The soldier removed the blankets from around himself and wrapped them around Bruce. Not only was his lover still fighting to get warm against the hypothermia, he was also recovering from a Hulk transformation, one that had included a brutal battle. The man had to have been exhausted, and it was obvious in the way Bruce only gave a shaky hum in response.

Steve reluctantly left Bruce lying on the bed and pulled off his gloves as he went about getting one of the big soup pots on the stove. He braved the freezer to pull out the containers of frozen soup that they had fixed together a few weeks ago, when Clint had come down with the flu. The icy soup burned cold against his fingers as he moved the blocks of ice to the pot. He turned on the stovetop to a low flame, ensuring that the soup would melt back into its original form in maybe forty minutes, and put the lid on the pot.

When he passed by Bruce again, the man was curled tight into the blankets, still shivering and dozing fitfully. Steve fought the urge to just pull him into another embrace, to lend him his body heat, but Steve knew that his own body temperature was probably a little low, too. He was still wearing his snow-damp uniform.

It was like the reminder of his wet clothes sent a shiver through him, and he remembered that he was still cold, too. That icy feeling that crept into him when his nightmares got really bad had lodged into his chest, and no amount of blankets alone could fix that.

Bruce always knew how to fix it, though.

A small, fleeting smile crossed the soldier’s face, and he moved across the room and into the master bathroom. “JARVIS, can you keep an eye on the soup, please?” he asked as he sat down on the ledge of the gigantic bathtub. 

_“Of course, Captain,”_ the AI responded. 

“Thanks,” Steve said with a smile, and then reached for the faucet and started to draw a nice hot bath. On nights when exercise, hot tea, or cuddling in bed couldn’t warm him up after a nightmare, Bruce would guide him into the enormous tub, filled with deliciously hot water, and they would just sit together, Steve’s back pressed to Bruce’s chest and Bruce’s arms wrapped around him in a loose but loving embrace, until the ice ebbed away.

When the tub was full, Steve moved back into the bedroom and approached the bed. “Bruce,” he said softly, gently brushing his fingers along Bruce’s jawline.

The physicist drew a shaky breath and nestled deeper into the blankets. “Your hands are cold,” the muffled complaint snaked its way through the fabric to reach Steve’s ears.

“I’m pretty sure you’re the one who’s still half-frozen,” Steve replied, laying his hand on where he was pretty sure Bruce’s shoulder was, hidden behind the thick layers of the blankets. When Bruce didn’t make a move to leave the sanctuary of the fabric, Steve lightly jostled his shoulder. “Come on, Bruce,” he coaxed. “There’s soup heating up on the stove that will be ready after a nice hot bath.”

Bruce didn’t move for a long moment, but finally exhaled in a mildly quivering sigh. Steve helped to untangle the mess of blankets surrounding Bruce’s naked body, and as soon as his bare skin hit the air, he was shivering anew. The soldier carefully cradled him into his arms and carried him into the bathroom.

“You need to get out of that wet uniform,” Bruce managed to say, teeth chattering. “You must be freezing.”

“As soon as you’re situated in the water,” Steve promised gently, even as he slowly lowered Bruce into the tub, not caring that he was getting his uniform even more wet. 

The hot water felt amazing against his cold skin, even through the fabric of his uniform. An appreciative hum escaped from Bruce once he was settled in the hot water, the gentle ripples lapping at the curls against the back of his neck.

“This was a very good idea,” Bruce mumbled softly as Steve started taking off his wet uniform.

“Nothing you hadn’t already thought of,” Steve deflected as he got into the water behind Bruce. The water was deliciously hot, and as the super-soldier settled in behind his lover, he could already feel some of the icy fingers around his lungs beginning to loosen.

He gently wrapped his arms around Bruce and pulled him in to lie back against his chest. Bruce settled easily against the soldier and tilted his head into Steve’s when the blond man rested his chin atop the physicist’s shoulder. The physicist brought his hands up to lie atop Steve’s forearms, and Steve pressed a light kiss into Bruce’s neck.

“I’m here, Steve,” Bruce whispered, running his hands along the arms wrapped around him that tightened suddenly at the spoken words. “I’m here.”

Steve held his lover against him for a long moment, simply taking in the feel of solid weight against him and the heat of the water around them. He pressed his face into the juncture between Bruce’s neck and shoulder, feeling the slight tremors that were slowly starting to dissipate from the physicist’s body. 

“I thought I lost you,” he breathed into Bruce’s skin, voice tight. “Lost you to the ice…”

“You didn’t,” Bruce answered softly, letting his hands fall still to instead hold the arms that circled his body. “I’m right here.”

They stayed like that for a long time, their bodies soaking up the heat of the water and the calm of the atmosphere. Steve never let go, and Bruce’s hands never left the soldier’s forearms. 

Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye. After a while, once the water had become something between warm and cool, Steve realized that the man in his arms had dozed off at some point. The environment was certainly tranquil enough. Save for the sound of their breathing, the only other noise was the gentle lapping of water against the sides of the tub or their skin. 

Steve was relieved to find that the shivers that had raked through his lover’s body for the past few hours were now mostly gone, just an icy memory that had melted away. A small smile touched his lips, and he pressed another kiss to Bruce’s warm skin.

The light feel of lips on his neck brought a smile to Bruce’s face, and he dragged in a long breath before his eyelids fluttered open to gaze over at Steve.

“Food before sleep,” the soldier said quietly, and then finally released his lover from his embrace.

They both dried off and put on some warm clothes. Steve forced a sweater over Bruce’s head, and submitted sheepishly when Bruce did the same to him. By the time they were dressed, the soup was heated to perfection, and they both enjoyed two bowls of the hot, savory meal.

Not far into his second bowl, Bruce started yawning and was struggling to keep his eyes open. Steve collected their dishes and put the remaining soup back into their containers to be refrozen while Bruce started getting ready for bed.

When Steve finished brushing his teeth, Bruce was already in bed, curled up on his side underneath the covers and the blankets from the jet. A small tendril of concern went through the soldier. “Are you still cold?” he asked as he approached the bed.

Bruce smiled sleepily up at him when Steve pulled back the covers. “A little,” he admitted. Once Steve lay back against the mattress, Bruce curled up against him and wrapped an arm around the soldier’s chest. “But you’re nice and warm, so it’s okay.”

Steve chuckled and pulled Bruce against him, leaving his arm wrapped around his lover’s back. “You’ll probably get overheated in a few hours,” he commented. 

“Then you’ll be nice and toasty, so it’s still okay,” Bruce replied, settling his head on Steve’s shoulder. He pressed a light kiss to the exposed skin on the soldier’s neck, and the shiver that went through Steve’s body had nothing to do with the cold.

Bruce obviously felt it, and huffed a small laugh. “Good night, Steve.”

Steve tilted his head to place a soft kiss on his lover’s lips. “Good night, Bruce.”


End file.
